This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

The director of the UK’s national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), Chris Gibson, took up his post on 11 November as implementation of CERT-UK progresses, with initial operational capability planned for early next year.

Francis Maude, the Minister for Cabinet Office, said:

Chris Gibson brings with him a wealth of experience in cyber incident response in the private sector, both in the UK and internationally. His first-hand knowledge and understanding of cyber security will be invaluable as he leads the national CERT.

We set out in our national Cyber Security Strategy the importance of strengthening our response to cyber incidents. By establishing CERT-UK we will build on and complement our existing CERT structures. This will help improve national co-ordination of cyber incidents and act as a focus point for international sharing of technical information on cyber security. CERT-UK will be the expert single point of contact for other national CERTs around the globe.

Our next steps are clear, taking CERT-UK forward to launch and beyond. I look forward to working with Chris to do this.

Government has been clear on the importance of establishing a national CERT. This followed lessons learned from the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012, which have informed our Cyber Security National Incident Management policy.

Cyber attacks are a real and growing threat to UK interests and therefore cyber security is a national priority. Billions of pounds are lost to the UK economy each year with industry being by far the biggest victim.

The new CERT will:

provide a core incident management response

lead international CERT engagement

provide cyber situational awareness and information sharing for the benefit of the UK as a whole

Chris said:

I am delighted to join CERT-UK as we enter this exciting phase, with implementation underway and the leadership team now being appointed I am looking forward to the task of bringing together government, industry, law enforcement and academia to establish the CERT as a team of professionals forming a world-class response to cyber threats to the UK.

Notes for editors

The UK already has existing CERT capability for government, the critical national infrastructure and our defence forces. The new national CERT will build on and enhance these existing mechanisms.

Chris joins government having previously been the director of e-crime at Citigroup. Chris is an internationally recognised expert on cyber incident response, having been for 9 years on the leadership team of the international Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), with the last 2 as global chair. Chris is a member of the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) Cyber Advisory Panel and for 10 years one of Citigroup’s representatives to the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure’s Financial Service’s Information Exchange.

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